Mad Heidi (2022)

Brie-lliant Disguise

I’m not inspired to write about Mad Heidi, so no hard feelings if you stop reading now. But don’t turn back thinking this is a negative review. Far from it. Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein’s crowdfunded “Swissploitation” film belongs in the pantheon of modern takes on grindhouse movies that actually works (in my estimation, it’s the silver medalist to Turbo Kid’s gold and Iron Sky’s bronze). For many, these movies are review-proof: you’re either down for watching 92 minutes of actors hamming it up in dystopian bloodbaths, punctuated by gratuitous nudity and deliberately hokey production values—or you’re not. Hell, if you’ve made it this far, a hundred bucks says you paused to look up how to watch Mad Heidi upon reading the word “Swissploitation”.

So why waste 800+ words talking about a movie, when “Go See It!” would suffice? Turns out, I actually have something to say beyond the obvious: as hard as the filmmakers apparently tried to make their production as silly and popcorn movie-disposable as they could, Hartmann and Klopfstein accidentally put out a legit film. In the same way The Terminator isn’t just a “killer robot” movie thanks in large part to Linda Hamilton’s performance; and Sigourney Weaver helps separate the Alien series from run-of-the-mill monster movies, so does Alice Lucy cement Mad Heidi as the birth of an icon. It’s another in a distinguished line of debut lead performances that makes the audience notice there’s a lot more happening in the rest of the picture than the poster or tagline would suggest.

Lucy stars as the grown-up version of beloved Swiss children’s-book character, Heidi. In the film’s cracked reality, an evil dictator named President Meili (Casper Van Dien) has taken over Switzerland, turning it into the ultimate fascist state with cheese as the financial engine of his authoritarian rule. Goose-stepping stormtroopers with red-encircled white cross armbands put down revolutions and execute dissidents in the streets as Meili schemes to exert his dairy dominance over other parts of the globe. Simple country girl Heidi (who has “that starry-eyed cluelessness one only finds in the Alps”) becomes a guerilla warrior after losing friends and family to Meili’s regime—in addition to being imprisoned, beaten, and dehumanized.

Based on the film’s trailer, you might think Mad Heidi is all splattered brains and one-liners, but it’s a very back-loaded movie in that regard. The opening is a lot of fun, thanks to the eyebrow-raising spectacle of a bonkers premise fully realized on screen. The final third, in which a reborn Heidi becomes an avenging angel of Swiss Miss-fortune, has the scientifically calculated amount of fist-pumping, bad-guy-stomping viscera guaranteed to make viewers tell their friends. There’s a good stretch of the movie, however, in which Lucy transforms from one kind of character into another. Look beyond the jokes about lactose intolerance and the gooey sadism of water-boarding dissenters with boiling cheese (cheese-boarding?), and you’ll see an actress and a character come into their own. It’s fitting that Hartmann and Klopfstein include an homage to the waterfall scene from Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive: both Harrison Ford’s Richard Kimball and Alice Lucy’s Heidi emerge from otherwise watery graves as dogged pursuers of justice rather than framed criminals hunted by dogs.

Heidi fights an uphill battle, for sure. Meili’s nightmare world is a fully realized hellscape of bullies, victims, and the go-along-to-get-along majority caught in between.* He packs a stadium full of cheering, Swiss flag-waiving spectators to watch Heidi get trounced by an armored freakshow called “The Neutral-izer” (a too-clever-by-half pun/comment on the country’s famous anti-conflict stance). Heidi’s best friend/cellmate Klara (Almar G. Sato) refuses to join a prison break after succumbing to cheese addiction. And Meili’s military teems with cruel murderers and perverts who derive pleasure from experimenting on the helpless and taking cheddar-lubed sausages up the rear.

In the hands of creators with a one-track, one-joke mind, Mad Heidi would have been like so many other lame attempts to stretch an amusing trailer concept into a full-length feature (I’m looking at you, Machete Kills and Hobo with a Shotgun). But Hartmann and Klopfstein give us a character worth rooting for—as well as a refreshing reframe of nationalism as a virtue worth fighting for. Heidi triumphantly planting the Swiss flag in a still-living symbol of Meili’s regime is at once a comical image and a reminder that it’s okay to use pride in one’s country as a cudgel against those who would seek to undermine its principles.

If that’s all too heavy for a night at the movies, there’s plenty of boobs, blood, and bullets to ease your brain back into passivity. But for those looking for more than processed meat on the bones of their over-the-top entertainment, Mad Heidi may represent yet another new sub-genre: Thoughtsploitation.

*With a reported $3.5 million budget, Mad Heidi’s production values put those of quarter-billion-dollar flops like Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Flash to shame. In addition to the requisite sex and violence writ large, exploitation fans also appreciate practical sets, imaginative costumes, and old-school practical gore—which this film has in spades.

You can watch my interview with Mad Heidi stars Alice Lucy and Casper Van Dien on the KtS YouTube channel.

And if you want to catch Mad Heidi on the big screen, Fathom Events is putting on a one-night-only show at several theaters across North America and Canada on June 21, 2023.